


Run fast and dig deep

by qwerty



Category: Watership Down - Richard Adams
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-21
Updated: 2010-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new warren wants new stories, but Hyzenthlay's stories never learnt to run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run fast and dig deep

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kaptainsarcasm for Yuletide 2006

> I am out here studying stones  
> Trying to learn to be less alive  
> Using all of my will  
> To keep very still  
> Still even on the inside.  
> \----- Ani DiFranco _Studying Stones_

Dawn silflay. The air is cool and still, heavy with the tangled smells of dew-wet grass and green growing things. Birds are twittering in the half-light, beginning to test their voices. High and away among the beeches, a yellowhammer is singing.

There is a burst of sound and movement close to your left flank. Someone -- Thethuthinnang -- has entered a game of tag with one of the bucks, the one who tells stories -- Dandelion? No, Bluebell. You can hear fading snatches of the nonsense story he is telling her as they chase each other in zig-zags and leaps along the edge of the beech hanger, and once Thethuthinnang jumps up in a dance of sheer delight before the two expend their high spirits and continue feeding.

Some distance downslope, nearly out of sight of the Honeycomb, you can see Blackavar at silflay as well. Close to Thlayli, as though still under guard, but hopping about without looking at the big buck. Nothing like the wounded, near-tharn prisoner you remember from Efrafa.

How strange. Only days from Efrafa, from the mad dash for freedom through the storm, the dream-like journey on the boat down the river, and the last, terrifying encounter with Captain Campion's patrol when you thought for a moment that it had all been for nothing, and already it seems as though they have always lived here, like this.

Rabbits are . . . not simple. They are elemental creatures. Habit is instinct is custom is necessity is nature. General Woundwort's laws were strange and difficult, but they had adapted. Rabbits did not ally with strange birds, set out into storms for unknown places or ride in boats, but they had. You'd never had need to dig new tunnels before coming here, but when the earth yielded beneath your claws, you understood immediately which way to dig, how to clear away the loosened earth, the tricks for shoring up the sides so the run would not fall in.

Rabbits live, learn, make the lessons part of their nature, forget. You would, too, if you could.

But somewhere between the memory of being pressed against Thlayli's side in the Efrafan burrows, waiting and wondering if Nelthilta or one of the other does would give away your plans for escape, and stopping to rest in a new burrow in the Honeycomb you dug yourself, your visions have become confused, blending pasts and futures and maybes. Out of the corner of your eye you see Thistle and Groundsel coming over the grassy rise; General Woundwort's ghost growls in the tunnels behind you, vanishing when you turn. There are _kittens_. They might even be yours. _No._ Your kittens are --

"Sometimes the sky is too open," says the Black Rabbit beside you, her voice mild and sympathetic. You realise that you have frozen, crouching against the ground at the thoughts of the General and the kittens inside you now melted away who will never run, and strangely enough, her voice shakes the growing frost from your heart. The Black Rabbit -- no, it is Clover, the big black doe. She has -- will have kittens. "It's beautiful out here, but I don't know what to do with myself half the time," she says.

You sit up and shudder. "At Efrafa, we were never allowed far from the holes. And here I am, hardly hrair jumps from being underground."

Clover's nose twitches. She looks at you, and browses on a small clump of spicy lovage. "Holly told me a little about how it was like, but it must have been worse for you. The hutch was small, but at least Boxwood and Haystack were my friends. And there was Laurel." She turns and lowers her ears slightly, her expression soft and distant with memory. You turn over the scraps you have heard from the other rabbits; Laurel was the buck she left behind at the farm.

You nudge her briskly. "I'm going to look at the morning side of the wood. I haven't seen much of the area around the warren yet," you tell her, and start towards the beeches with more confidence than you feel, looking back to make sure that she understands the invitation to follow.

'But I," she starts, then shakes her head and hops after you, willing to be diverted. "Hawkbit said that the grass is nice there. Would you believe a mouse told him?"

The grass is indeed nice. It is short and all the same length, with many new, tender shoots pushing out from between the tough older blades. Human work, no doubt. The shadows of birds pass by on the ground, but it is too early for the thermals that kestrels favour, and there are no stamped warnings.

A mouse. You believe it. Why not? They have managed to find help from birds, hombas, a giant fiery hrududu thundering over the iron road. A mouse seems almost commonplace and boring in comparison. You are looking for a ditch when Clover stops to pass hraka, and you remember you no longer have to bury your hraka like a cat. And that -- that is the strangest thing of all.

Thlayli's promise, almost forgotten in the nightmarish flight from Efrafa and General Woundwort. You can silflay when you like, mate with whom you choose, dig your own burrows, bear your litters alive, tell stories to your kittens. This isn't Efrafa.

"What is it?" Clover asks. She nuzzles you gently, concerned. You nuzzle her back. Her black fur is warm, and very, very soft. You groom her a little; rub your chin against her, marking her with your scent. She will have kittens. _You_ will have kittens, you are sure of it. You will tell them stories. They will play bob-stones in the burrow on grey, rainy days. Imperiously, you push your head beneath hers, and after a moment's surprise, she complies with the demand for grooming. You purr, eyes half-closing in pleasure, and then, a flash --

_Elil._ You pull back and stamp; Clover startles. "Follow me!" you tell her, and she obeys, her hutch-raised body now sleek and just as strong and fast as any wild rabbit's. Together, you burst through the thorny bushes and leap over the stunned stoat creeping up on you, bounding so fast it is out of sight before Clover can gasp her alarm.

"Hyzenthlay!"

"I will tell you a story," you say, "a story of El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle."

You dodge around a rock with Clover at your heels. "Of the rabbits in the black tunnels beneath the mountains."

Burst through the beech trees, past Boxwood and Haystack, who sit up as you pass. "Rabbits that had never seen Frith or Inlé --"

The sun is at your back, the wind in your ears. "How El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle led them out into the light."

You stop before the north entrance and pant. "Taught them to live like rabbits, running and digging, using the gifts Lord Frith gave them."

You turn to look at Clover again. "Follow me."

Clover's eyes are bright, her ears raised attentively. "I know that story," she breathes, and follows you down into the Honeycomb.

**end**


End file.
